


Just Rivals

by quietinthelibrary



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, day 5 - celebrities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietinthelibrary/pseuds/quietinthelibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin shows Haru a sight he'd never seen before -- from dedicated fans, anyway, on social media.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Rivals

“Hey, Haru, look at this!” Rin leaned into Haruka, pushing his phone into Haruka's line of sight. Haruka stared bemusedly at the screen, the sudden brightness preventing him from making out anything he figured Rin must be trying to show him. As his vision adjusted, Haruka saw... himself, on the screen, next to Rin. Rin was grinning widely and had just managed to goad the pixelated version of Haruka into a smile himself, in what Haruka recognized as a brief interview some time after the first relay they got to swim with each other, representing Japan together. 

“... What about it?”

“Just keep scrolling down, Haru.” 

Haruka hadn't realized that there was more to what Rin wanted to show him beyond the tiny moving image version of themselves there, and scrolled down a bit more. There turned out to be a few more other moving images of themselves from various other interviews and races over the years: after their first individual races at the Olympics, in an interview where Rin had gotten flustered over Haruka simply stating the facts (Haruka would find out just why Rin had reacted like that much later); when Rin had pulled Haruka out of the water only to engulf him in his arms, barely giving him time to catch his breath; and... apparently a time when he'd nodded off during an interview without even realizing it, leaving Rin to keep him from toppling over. (Haruka wasn't the best at adjusting to all the different timezones of the places they'd been to, after all, but he really didn't remember that happening at all. He wouldn't have believed that it happened if not for seeing such a record of it there on the screen.)

“Who compiled all this?” Haruka asked.

“Some fans, I guess. Did you read the caption?” 

Scrolling down further, Haruka read the text below all those images of the two of them. It seemed to be quoting something they said in an official interview, in response to a question about the relationship the two of them had. Haruka hadn't thought too much about the way he answered that question, though he thought maybe Rin had, but he supposed the “official” answer ended up being something like rivals who inspire each other to keep getting better and better. However, after the quote, the caption continued by placing many further emphases on the word “rivals,” for some reason. Then it ended by saying, “Just Rivals,” followed by a strange looking face (that Haruka wanted to save, to use on Rin later). 

Once he reached the end, Haruka looked back up at Rin, and asked, “So why did you want to show me this?” 

Rin raised an eyebrow at Haru. “Haru, don't you see how popular this post is?”

Haruka shrugged. He wasn't sure what a number like 14,238 was supposed to mean on whatever website that was. “Is that considered 'popular'?”

Rin looped an arm around Haruka's shoulders. “It's enough to say that we have a bit of a fanbase. I bet there are people who've written fanfiction about us.”

“... 'Fanfiction'?”

“Just...” Rin took a moment to clear his throat. “Just some fan-written stories about us, or something like that.”

Huh. “That's kind of weird,” Haruka said, though Haruka couldn't say he particularly cared if people were doing that. It had no real bearing on his actual relationship with Rin, after all. 

“Says the guy who has a complete, convoluted 'Iwamoge' story involving all of his friends,” Rin snorted. 

Haruka frowned, turning away from Rin. The story of the monster Iwamoge and Dark Hero Iwatobi was no laughing matter. He could practically feel Rin grinning beside him though, as his arm moved down to rest around Haruka's waist, like some sort of precursor to Rin pressing his lips to Haruka's cheek (which confirmed Haruka's suspicions—Rin was smiling against his cheek, and that definitely didn't make his heart leap at all). 

So Haruka shifted beside Rin to turn his frown toward him, before leaning forward to take that smile off Rin's face. He could tell he wasn't exactly successful, with Rin's smile directly against his lips, but he felt Rin's other arm join the one around his waist, and he likewise responded by tangling his fingers in Rin's hair and pulling him closer.

**Author's Note:**

> couldn't help being meta
> 
> also, i feel like rin would know what fanfiction is... if their fanbase really did write fic and stuff (i feel like he'd look into fan activity and the like a lot more than haru would)
> 
> ALSO yes i ended up drawing some inspiration from [this post](http://oikawasstooru.tumblr.com/post/100380072924/just-rivals). also from rh fandom in general :p  
> (this is the face ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) haru was talking about)  
> and also thanks to my friend for reblogging sports people gifsets/videos w/ fan commentary b/c that's also where i drew inspiration from, given how i don't keep up w/ sports myself


End file.
